Posted on 06/26/2015 7:53:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Supreme Court has struck down state bans on gay marriage and has ruled 5-4 same sex marriage is a constitutional right. Same sex couples can now marry in all 50 states and states. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the dissent, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas.
From the opinion:
Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.
(4) The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. Same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. The State laws challenged by the petitioners in these cases are held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.
"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people be come something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilizations oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right," Kennedy wrote in the opinion.
"The ancient origins of marriage confirm its centrality, but it has not stood in isolation from developments in law and society. The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. That institution—even as confined to opposite-sex relations—has evolved over time," Kennedy wrote. "Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. The fundamental liberties protected by this Clause include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 147149 (1968). In addition these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs."
"This analysis compels the conclusion that same-sex couples may exercise the right to marry. The four principles and traditions to be discussed demonstrate that the reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution apply with equal force to same-sex couples. A first premise of the Courts relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy," Kennedy continued. "Excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples."
The question that now remains is how the Supreme Court will balance religious freedom, which is protected under the First Amendment, with this ruling on future cases. Kennedy touched on this point in his opinion.
"Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons. In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate. The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex," he said.
The dissent from Roberts, Scalia and Thomas is searing, much like Scalia's dissent from yesterday on the Obamacare subsidy ruling.
More to follow...
This post has been updated with additional information.
Good question that one.
Those deductions are precisely the reason the Court ruled the way it did. If special considerations had not been granted UNDER THE LAW to heterosexual couples, there would have been no basis for homosexual couples to demand the same.
Pfft even if they did they will recognize the hate crime of refusing to serve/bow/bend over and take it up the rear from the faggot lovers and the faggots. Anyone with a dissenting opinion will be fined, jailed, their kids taken, their lives ruined, assets seized, or killed.
This pits the massive Christian population against the rest of the population. It’s divisive, evil, and FUBAR.
“I never thought I would reach the point where the flag of my own country fills me with more disgust than pride,”
Please don’t feel that way. What our beautiful flag represents is NOT what the liberal socialist stand for at all. I felt similar when Obama was re-elected and took our flags down.. But thank God my son (was 21 at the time) told me...Mom, now there is more reason than ever to act like a REAL American. He was right and still is. Someone has to do it!
Go back to high school biology class. Same sex unions cannot produce children. Any children in their household are the product of a different union.
Did this also strike down laws against first cousins marrying?
What other marriage prohibitions were struck down?
My interpretation says yes. If my state is forced to recognize same sex marriages from other states then those states must recognize my CC permit.
Google is celebrating: https://www.google.com/webhp#q=gay+marriage+supreme+court
Tons of married homosexuals will now be able to adopt children, groom them, and rape them. Pedophilia will be next. Or polygamy. Or they will take crosses down across America because “the cross is a symbol of hate.”
For sharing this dissenting opinion on queer marriage I expect that someday they will take my kids away(if I ever have kids).
Not really. If a State only recognizes out-of-State CCW's for a certain group of people, but nobody else, then it's a good question.
Raise your hand if you did not know this was going to happen.
Now its time for the 10th amendment. States need to just defy the ruling. Go their own way. Its past time.
Sodom and Obamah
The legal caste loves it!
Amen
Roberts the slime opened the door for this, I give him no credit at all.
It is becoming increasingly clear that as long as Christians continue to support the system as stands, fight in its army, etc. they are laying the tracks for their own destruction. It is not time for the Glenn Beck style of resistance, that time has passed...
The robed Houdinis have just given ISIS and its fellow travelers yet another reason to attack us - we've just proven to them that we are an even greater Satan than they thought before...and maybe we are.
An excerpt from Scalia’s dissent:
“Todays decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”
Different?
All it is is a different form of marriage, as homo is to hetero.
What of cousins? Why in many places are there restrictions on relations marrying? No one seems to question excluding cousins from marrying.
That is the point. If they must allow homos to marry, they surely must allow anyone, of any type, and any number, to marry.
Well, there's an alternative flag that you can use - and now the Stars & Bars is likely cheaper, due to less demand. :>)
Rather amazing that the same Chief Justice Roberts, who performed amazing legal gymnastics to uphold Obamacare, can also write a cogent dissent on the gay marriage issue, exposing today’s ruling for what it is: five liberal lawyers, with commissions to interpret the law, imposing their beliefs on a nation that remains largely opposed to gay marriage, in spite of recent polling data.
He also correctly identifies the next fight, and trust me, it’s coming:
“Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that seem to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples. Indeed, the Solicitor General candidly acknowledged that the tax-exempt status of some religious institutions would be in question if they opposed same sex marriage...unfortunately, people of faith can take little comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.”
The recently-retired senior pastor of my church once shared a dream he had with the congregation. In the last years of his life, he saw himself in prison for refusing to support the rights of gays. I haven’t spoken with him since this morning’s ruling, but he would probably say he’s one step closer to that prison cell.
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